The thirteenth century, like the eighteenth century, was a siècle français. Even Frederick II had failed to eradicate the impression German decline which had found expression after Philip Augustus's victory at Bouvines in 1214. After Frederick II's death in 1250, the Capetian monarchy had used its power, its prestige and its traditions to obtain political predominance in Europe and, indeed, throughout the Mediterranean world. The French monarchy was not, indeed, so firmly established as contemporaries supposed: after 1314 a period of “feudal reaction” set in, which revealed the weaknesses in the political structure the Capetians had built up. But the sudden concentration of French power in the closing years of the thirteenth century, the unity of the country around the throne, and the unanimous support which all classes, nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie, gave to royal policy, not only contrasted markedly with the divergences of interest within England and within Germany, but also gave the Capetian monarchs decisive advantages in their dealings with other governments. French policy, based on Carolingian tradition and directed to the “reintegration” of Gaul, was, by comparison with the mere conservatism of Edward I, positive, clearly defined, and systematically pursued. Unlike English or German policy i t was invigorated by a conscious “ideology”, which found expression not only in the unofficial writings of Pierre Dubois, but also in the official memoranda of Nogaret, Flote and Plaisians, and which had deep roots in French history.3 Because of these advantages, France at this period was the focal point at which all the complex problems of European politics converged: all the wires which statesmen were pulling, passed through Paris. European policy responded or reacted to the policy of France.

Spain at the close of the fifteenth century had just completed a long process of unification, accomplished by a series of crusades, partly national and partly religious in character, within Iberian territory. Pride of race, skill in arms and a truculent missionary Catholicism characterized the ruling elements in the new Spanish state, especially in Castille, the dominant partner of the union. A stern royal discipline controlled the ambitions of the aristocracy. The monarchy was strong, at that time truly national, supreme in both Church and State. Its authority, however, though autocratic, was by no means lawless. Canon and Civil Law, adapted to national needs, existed side by side with jealously guarded local fueros and the interpretation and reconciliation of masses of conflicting law lay in the hands of a numerous and very powerful legal profession. Spain, indeed, carried over from the age of feudalism into the age of sovereignty the supposedly mediaeval notion of jurisdiction as the essential function of authority. The monarch was still a judge, the chief of judges. His authority was most directly and characteristically represented by the high courts of justice and in the government of his dominions the school-trained lawyer was his most useful servant.

In the late afternoon of Sunday, 29 December 1895, a little column of mounted men moved out from their camp at Pitsani Pothlugo in the south-eastern corner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and headed eastward for the boundary of the South African Republic, a few miles away. At about ten o'clock that night a still smaller column rode off along the northern road from Mafeking, the capital of British Bechuana-land thirty miles or so to the south, and once they were clear of the straggling town, wheeled to the right and also made for the Transvaal border. Riding through the starry night of a High Veld summer, the two columns joined hands at daybreak on republican soil and, after a short halt, pushed on at a smart pace towards Johannesburg.